Speaker Johnson to file brief supporting Bannon appeal in Jan. 6 contempt case

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that House GOP leaders plan to file an amicus brief with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

House leaders led by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will file a legal brief in support of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s appeal of his conviction for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 select committee.

The former Trump adviser was found guilty in 2022 on two counts of contempt of Congress after he refused to sit for an interview with the panel and hand over documents. He is appealing the case to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Bannon — who was ordered to report to prison for a four-month sentence by July 1 — has also filed an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court last week to remain out of jail as he appeals his conviction.

The Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group — a House group made up of the Speaker and the leaders and whips of the majority and minority parties in the House, which directs the chamber in taking legal positions — voted along party lines to proceed with an amicus brief to the appeals court in the Bannon matter, GOP leaders confirmed Wednesday morning.

“The amicus brief will be submitted after Bannon files a petition for rehearing en banc and will be in support of neither party,” Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said in a joint statement. “It will withdraw certain arguments made by the House earlier in the litigation about the organization of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol during the prior Congress. House Republican Leadership continues to believe Speaker Pelosi abused her authority when organizing the Select Committee.”

The move will be something of a legal test to see if Congress can be effective in trying to discredit or nullify actions completed in the past, under opposing party leadership.

Johnson publicly revealed his plans to file an amicus brief during interviews with Fox News and CNN Tuesday evening, arguing that the Jan. 6 select committee — which investigated the deadly riot for months throughout 2021 — produced work that was “tainted.”

“We’re working on filing an amicus brief in his appellate work there in his case because the Jan. 6 committee was, we think, wrongfully constituted,” Johnson told Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “We think the work was tainted. We think that they may have very well covered up evidence and maybe even more nefarious activities.”

“We’ve been investigating the committee itself; we disagree with how Speaker Pelosi put all that together; we think it violated House rules,” he continued. “And so we’ll be expressing that to the court, and I think it will help Steve Bannon in his appeal.”

Republicans have long pushed back on the Jan. 6 select committee’s subpoenas by arguing it was improperly constituted. So far, those arguments have been unsuccessful in court.

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro is currently serving a four-month sentence after being found guilty of contempt charges for similarly flouting the Jan. 6 select committee’s subpoena. He unsuccessfully requested emergency relief from the Supreme Court.

The announcement from Johnson also follows a letter Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) sent to the Speaker earlier on Tuesday urging the Louisiana Republican to file an amicus brief in support of Bannon’s appeal.

The entreaty from Banks is no coincidence: the Indiana Republican was nominated by then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to serve as ranking member of the Jan. 6 panel, but then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) blocked him and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) from serving on the select committee.

McCarthy, in response, yanked all his picks from the panel, prompting Pelosi to tap former Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) to sit on the select committee to make it bipartisan. Republicans, however, rejected the notion that the panel was bipartisan since the Republican leader had not appointed them.

Johnson on Tuesday evening rejected the notion that filing an amicus brief in support of Bannon will undercut his ability to enforce Congressional subpoenas in the future.

“No, not at all,” Johnson told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.”

Updated on Wednesday, June 26, at 10:19 a.m.